Pinchon closed his mouth and looked at the doctor cannily. The doctor watched the card players, halfway down the gallery, enclosed in a moist nimbus of light. A large green moth swirled toward their candle. Maillart flipped it away with his fingers but it soon returned. Vaublanc cursed the moth and batted it away with his hat.
“Your discretion is admirable,” Pinchon said. “Perhaps it’s better so. In any case the old buffoon has engaged me to write his letters for him”—he winked—“which should make the affair much easier to conclude.”
Still the doctor said nothing. Retracing his way through Pinchon’s first remarks, he struck against the phrases half-breed bastard and mulatto whore. He had been on the verge of explaining to Pinchon the extent of his misapprehensions, but now he decided he had just as well let the man work it out for himself.
At first light Guiaou’s eyes opened to greet a small striped lizard poised on the matting of damp leaves just beyond the shelter he had erected. The lizard’s tail had been broken off and it was just beginning to sprout a new one from the stump. He made no attempt to catch it; he was not half so hungry as before.
Also he still had his cassava bread, which he took with him when Quamba rose and beckoned him to follow. They followed a well-beaten trail to a clearing where many men were seated in a circle. An old woman was grinding coffee in the hollowed stump of a tree, using a staff as tall as herself for a pestle, and another was roasting corn over a charcoal fire. The men held out gourds or handmade clay vessels or oddments of European crockery to receive their coffee ration. Quamba was served by a pretty young woman with glossy black skin, her hair swept up in a red and gold-spangled mouchwa têt.
“Merbillay,” Quamba said, watching Guiaou’s eyes track her as she passed. Quamba shared his cup with Guiaou, who had none of his own, and Guiaou passed him half of the remaining cassava bread. Someone gave each of them a steaming ear of corn.
They assembled for drill behind the cane mill on the flat ground where the bagasse was stacked. Guiaou’s group was commanded by the same Frenchman in Spanish uniform he’d seen the day before, who was called Captain Maillart. A black officer was with him, the Captain Moyse. Under the orders of these two, the men formed in a square, marched, reversed, shouldered arms, presented them, knelt and aimed but did not fire. The movements were well-schooled, automatic—Guiaou was accustomed to them from his service with the Swiss, though perhaps the drill was a little crisper here. His arms and legs remembered to respond without thinking. No thought was in him, only his limbs answering the voices of the officers and a cool vacant space behind his eyes.
Maillart’s voice cracked and the men formed a double column and quick-marched off the improvised drill field. Guiaou’s neck and shoulders began to itch. He had been marched in and out of cane fields in columns like this one, encouraged by a whip, and made to sing. He had been marched on and off slave ships with an iron collar riveted around his neck. Now they were marching through the small carrés of cane, and other men were working there, but the soldiers did not stop. In silence the double column began to climb the terraces of coffee trees, Captain Moyse at the head and Captain Maillart in the rear. The hillside was steep but Moyse urged them, his voice lower and broader than the white man’s, so that they did not slacken speed.
Where the coffee ended a trail began, rising through clumps of bamboo and twisted flamboyants clinging to the cliff side—a red slash in the rocky earth. The men went up in single file, swinging into double time at Maillart’s order, stooping low and sometimes scrabbling with the free hand to keep going. When the ground leveled off at the ridge top, Maillart’s voice snapped again and the black soldiers dispersed from the trail like a flock of stone-scattered birds, rolling into cover of the brush and taking up firing positions, which they held just long enough for Guiaou to breathe more easily. The air was thick. It was very hot. Below, a long way below, were the buildings and small cane pieces of Habitation Thibodet, tucked into pockets among the sudden hills.
Captain Maillart appeared on the trail, his sword drawn, expression focused—a hundred yards farther, Moyse also showed himself. At the word of Moyse the column re-formed and the men went over the crest of the ridge at a loping dog trot and scrambled down the opposite slope and then climbed the next morne at the same fast pace as before. Here there was no trail at all and the ground was wet and slick—a chunk of earth ripped away under Quamba’s feet and he began to fall backward, but Guiaou steadied him from behind and urged him on so that they did not lose much speed. At the height of the next hill they scattered from the trail again to find firing positions under cover. Guiaou used the little time to check his cartridges and the mechanism of his musket, and then to breathe. When Captain Maillart showed himself again, he was sweating very much, much more than the black men sweated. Of course he wore a full uniform, and had kept up the pace in the tall, heavy boots he had on his feet, while most of the black soldiers were barefoot and wore little but their trousers and their weapons.
They marched down the hill at an easier pace and traversed the squares of cane at a different angle. By the time they reached the area behind the cane mill, the sun had climbed almost to its height. There they were given a ration of water and then dismissed.
Doctor Hébert was standing knee-deep in water in the swampy area behind and above the grand’case, when Captain Maillart, sweat-soaked and breathless, climbed the little colline to find him there. When he saw the captain approaching, the doctor straightened from his work and pulled off the broad-brimmed straw hat he wore to protect his balding head from the sun. He dipped the hat in the water and then replaced it on his head. The hat had been soaked so often it had lost all shape and the brim hung down the back of his neck like a wet rag.
“Je m’excuse,” the captain said. He took off his uniform coat and spread it delicately over a thornbush, then removed his shirt and began to wring sweat out of it. The doctor surveyed him with a medical eye. Maillart had lost much weight since his days with the regular French army, so that his ribs showed plainly through the skin and his uniform trousers bagged around his hips, but if he was thin he looked healthy enough.
“News,” Captain Maillart said, turning to lay his damp shirt beside the coat. “I am dispatched to General Laveaux—at Le Cap or Port-de-Paix or wherever I may find him.”
“When?” The doctor stooped to rinse his grimy hands and then climbed out onto the bank, which was now partly reinforced by a dam of mud and stones.
“We leave tomorrow.”
“Ah,” the doctor said. “But it’s dangerous for you—or not?” He knew that Maillart was at least technically a deserter, having decamped from Laveaux’s revolutionary command along with a good many other officers of similarly royalist inclinations.
The captain’s thin shoulders hitched in the air. “Who harms the messenger who brings good tidings?” He grinned.
“Indeed?” the doctor said, in some surprise.
“Well, we must wait upon events,” the captain said. “I am authorized to express . . . receptivity, one might say.”
“Ah.” The doctor took off his hat and squinted at the sun. He smoothed his damp hands back over his bald spot. “It’s an odd moment to choose to join forces with the French,” he said. “Their fortunes have hardly been at lower ebb since the first insurrection.”
“They?” the captain said. “The French?”
The doctor laughed uneasily. Both he and Maillart were French themselves, but the colony had been fragmented in so many different directions that questions of allegiance had become rather difficult to contemplate.
“That point may press you more closely than it does me.”
“True,” the captain said, his face briefly clouding.
“This Monsieur Pinchon claims to have an overture from the English at Saint Marc.”
“I didn’t know,” the captain said. He stared down at the pool of water, where three black men were continuing work on the dam. “It’s plausible. In general these English p
refer to bribe than fight—but they’ve restored slavery in whatever territory they’ve taken, so I can’t think Toussaint would receive such a proposal. Still . . .”
“Difficult to know his mind, isn’t it?”
“Truly,” the captain said. “There’s his advantage.”
The doctor called to Bazau, who led the work gang: “Break off, shall we? Get out of the heat. We will begin again at three.” Bazau nodded and all three men came climbing out over the reinforced bank. They smiled at the two white men and started down the hill.
“I meant to ask if you’d go with me,” the captain said.
“Tomorrow?” said the doctor. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t like to leave this work half done.”
Both men turned to survey the water project. “A pool just here,” the doctor said, “for the children. All this area will be drained.” He waved his hand. “We might plant flowers, on the border of the pool.” He turned and pointed downhill toward the grand’case and the outbuildings. “Then a channel to bring the overflow down past the kitchen . . .”
“Most elegant,” the captain said. “Fanciful too, for time of war.”
“There’s not been much fighting in our area,” the doctor said, “as you certainly will have noticed. In any case it’s a matter of necessity. All this seepage has already begun to rot out the floors of the grand’case.”
“But you’ll become too bucolic in your habits,” the captain said, with a smile that sought to evoke past dissipations—if not debaucheries. “How long has it been since you’ve seen Le Cap?”
“I believe I’ve seen it more recently than you,” the doctor said, “at which time it was well on its way to burning to the ground. You must ask Xavier—he’s more restless than I.”
“One might have need of your famous marksmanship along the way,” the captain said.
The doctor smiled. “I think you’ll find Xavier quite capable,” he said, “in case of any such need.”
Guiaou and Quamba were working in the stable, brushing mares and geldings and combing out their tails. It was Quamba’s regular duty—when a slave, he had been a groom. Guiaou was inexperienced with horses, had never mounted anything larger than a donkey. But with Quamba’s directions he began to relax to the work.
In the last stall on the row the big white stallion hung his head over the half-door, whickered and turned restively, and pressed against the door again. Quamba reached up casually and caught hold of his halter.
“The horse of Toussaint,” he said in a respectfully low tone. “Bel Argent.” He unlatched the door and slipped inside. Guiaou followed, ill at ease. As he entered the stall the stallion jerked his head and danced sideways. Guiaou plastered his back to the wall.
“Be still,” Quamba said. It was unclear if he was addressing the horse or Guiaou, who was certainly transfixed to his place and barely breathing. Quamba stroked the stallion’s long nose with his free hand, then turned to Guiaou.
“Brush him, as I showed you,” he said. “He’s wanted soon.”
Guiaou did not move from the wall. Quamba sighed. “Hold him, then.” And when Guiaou still remained motionless, Quamba took hold of his wrist and brought his hand to the halter. He picked up a brush and began to work down the stallion’s right side.
Guiaou looked into the stallion’s huge alien face. The stallion’s nostrils flared red, his eyes rolled, and he began to rear, lifting Guiaou to his toes.
“Don’t look at him like that,” Quamba hissed. “You frighten him. Here, don’t face him. Turn this way and hold him gently. Be a post.”
Now Guiaou and the stallion were shoulder to shoulder, both looking out over the half-door down the hallway of the stable. Guiaou could feel the horse’s warm breath flowing over the back of his hand. He took a sidelong glance, then reached and delicately touched the horse above the nostrils. The skin was warm and velvety, astonishingly soft. Both he and the horse now seemed to be growing calmer.
Doctor Hébert walked downhill with the captain and parted from him at the edge of the main compound. Toussaint must be intending to ride out again, he thought, for Quamba and Guiaou had just brought his horse into the yard, saddled and bridled and awaiting its rider. The stallion was stepping high and nervously, hooves slicing in the dust. Muscles twitched under his glossily brushed hide. The doctor turned and slowly began to climb the gallery steps, fatigued and a little giddy from the heat.
“If you please—”
Toussaint’s voice. The doctor turned left along the gallery and saw them sitting at the table where they’d dined the night before: Bruno Pinchon and the colored youth called Moustique. He saw the general’s uniform, stiffly formal and correct, the general’s hat with its white plumes laid on the table. It was odd, he thought again, how one noticed Toussaint’s uniform first—the man inside it reserved into a sort of invisible stillness, until he moved or spoke. Now Toussaint reached across the table to take the sheet of paper Pinchon had been writing on. He sat back, holding the letter close to his face.
The doctor stopped at the table’s edge and remained standing. He was a familiar of such scenes. Most likely it was the same letter he had drafted himself the day before. Toussaint liked his various secretaries to compose in ignorance of each other’s efforts—he himself would decide upon a final synthesis.
Now Toussaint frowned at the paper. His free hand unconsciously adjusted the knot that secured his yellow headcloth, then dropped below the table, to his waist. Pinchon leaned back, elbow on the gallery rail, a smirk on his face—he seemed to wish to catch the doctor’s eye. Toussaint stood up and away from the table with a silent cat-like movement, crumpling the letter with his left hand while with his right he flourished out a flintlock cavalry pistol as long as his own forearm and leveled it at Bruno Pinchon’s forehead. He held the pistol rock-steady for just long enough for the Frenchman to register what was happening and then he pulled the trigger.
The firing mechanism snapped. The doctor was acutely aware of a crow calling, then gliding to light on the eave of the cane mill. Pinchon’s Adam’s apple worked convulsively in an eerie silence. The pistol had not fired. The doctor looked into Toussaint’s face, rigid as some inscrutable wood carving. In the yard, Bel Argent kicked and half-reared. Guiaou cried out and broke away while Quamba followed the horse, dragging at the reins.
Toussaint thrust the pistol into its holster, put on his hat and walked quickly down the steps, hitching up the scabbard of his sword. He said something low, indistinguishable, and Bel Argent calmed instantly. Toussaint put the reins over the stallion’s head and turned back to the gallery.
“Moustique! Find a donkey.”
The boy jumped up and ran for the stables. By the time he returned, astride a small donkey, Toussaint had checked the girth buckles and mounted. He wheeled the stallion and rode out of the yard. Moustique followed on the donkey, at a jouncing trot.
Pinchon had propped his elbows on the table and covered his face with palsied hands. The doctor sat down in the chair Toussaint had occupied. He unfurled the wadded letter, read a line or two and tossed it away with a snort.
“So you didn’t write what he dictated.”
Pinchon peered at him through the cage of his trembling fingers. “I hardly supposed the man could read.”
“Your suppositions are most inexact,” the doctor said. “You’ve insulted his intelligence.” He looked down; a large red ant was just surfacing through one of the wider cracks between the boards of the gallery floor. The pistol might have misfired by chance, but the doctor did not much associate that sort of accident with Toussaint Louverture. If he had intentionally spilled the powder from the firing pan before aiming the pistol, he might also have wiped it into a crack with the edge of his boot.
Pinchon took his hands from his face and forced them to steady by bracing them hard against the tabletop. “What must I do?” he said.
“I don’t know,” the doctor said. “You can’t stay here.”
3
Moustiq
ue’s legs were longer than the donkey’s; astride, he could hardly keep his bare feet from dragging on the ground. He leaned forward, throwing his own slight weight up the steepening grade, stroking the donkey’s mane to encourage it. They were mounting through the coffee trees, Moustique following Toussaint, who rode the white charger. At the edge of the cultivation, high on the hill, Toussaint turned his horse into the forest, onto a still steeper slope. Moustique followed, urging the donkey with a squeeze around his legs, which scissored around the animal’s belly so far that his feet could almost touch. Under the trees, a damp, green cool was lingering, welcome now at the day’s fullest heat.
Underfoot it was also damp, the earth tearing under the animals’ hooves. Moustique watched the white charger, Bel Argent, sleek packets of muscle moving in his hindquarters. Toussaint, with a light pressure of his heels on the horse’s flanks and a few clucks of his tongue, negotiated his way around a shelf of raw rock overhung with vines. When he had reached the height of this himself, Moustique looked back once, but there was nothing to see but jungle; Habitation Thibodet had disappeared.
He had never been so high, on this particular mountain. The slope grew still more arduous, so that Moustique believed that Toussaint must surely dismount, but he seemed knitted to the saddle. Bel Argent yawed sideways, scattered wet dirt with his hooves, and finally seemed to scramble up onto some sort of level ground. In a moment Moustique had maneuvered his burro over the same lip; he found that they were standing on a narrow stone road, just wide enough for one mounted man to pass, or possibly two men walking abreast. Toussaint glanced at him dispassionately, wheeled his horse and started westward at a trot. Moustique followed. There was a hoof clack from Toussaint’s mount as they went on, as if they were crossing a cobblestone street. Moustique looked down and studied the road’s surface; thousands of smallish flints set close against each other and mortared in place by mud. He wondered who possibly could have made it.
Master of the Crossroads Page 5